Who Wrote Your Dictionary? - Part 2

In Part 1, we looked at what "define" means and asked, “Who wrote your dictionary?” Who we get our definitions from makes a big difference in how we look at life and how we live it. Are God's definitions your definitions?

Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God remake you so that your whole attitude of mind is changed. Rom 12:2 (Phillips)

As creatures and as God's people, we must be sure we get our definitions from God and not from those who think nothing of Him – and specially ones who oppose or resist Him.

The Beatles sang a song that said “Love, love, love – all you need is love...” but in real life, at the height of their fame, they could barely stand to speak to each other.

What if we were to ask someone like... let's say a rich and famous star or starlet or entertainer what love means, what would they say. They might say love is being head-over-heels for someone -- “crazy in love” -- something that takes off like a rocket, then cools off and goes sour. Then -- someone else comes along to be head-over-heels for. This is the world's mold that we need not to be squeezed into.

Question: What does “love” mean in Jesus' dictionary?

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? Mat 5:46

Love is not “giving to get.” Like Sammy Hagar singing “if you want love you've got to give a little...”

Jesus was asked: "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." Mar 12:28-31

Love incorporates your whole being. It is not just emotional - a "feeling" you have . Put your heart into, your mind into it... and put your back into it. And God requires it of us (it's not optional) toward our neighbors, not just for Himself.

Jesus had devoted the last three years of his life to teaching twelve men and many other friends everything they could understand about God's purpose and will. The night before his death, at a private dinner and passover celebration he spent a lot of time talking to them about what love means – as He defines it. It was at this last supper that he instructed about love – more than any other single occasion in the gospels.

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end (To the utmost). Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. Joh 13:1-5

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Joh 13:34-35

"If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father's who sent me. Joh 14:23-24

As they got up from their meal and began walking to the Garden of Gethsemane, He continued to talk to them...

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another." Joh 15:9-17

As they went, Jesus prayed. His prayer was for them and for us who have believed through them. Here is an excerpt of his prayer:

"And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them." Joh 17:19-26

Jesus didn't say anything “mushy” when He talked about love. When He talked about love, He talked about commitment and service. He talked about something that originated in eternity and is long-lasting, not here today and gone tomorrow. He talked about learning what is right. He talked about doing right for Him and for the benefit of others.

He said love means laying down your life for others... giving up your own life for the sake of others. That may take many forms. In the heat of battle, a soldier might literally give up his life to save a comrade. In the battles of everyday life, we have to learn to let go of what we want for the good of those who depend on us.

Are Jesus's definitions your definitions?